I agree with DV that mystifying blood and biology is primitive thinking. And yet, I feel very proprietary about my own eggies. I know exactly what has become of every single one of them, and I like it that way. I don’t think this is because I am selfishly attached to my DNA–I think it has more to do with my control issues–but I can’t deny that the DNA may be a part of it. DV needs to write her memior/novel about the fertility clinic so that I can review it here and we can have a book club discussion!

DV, let me know if you want to do a guest post here someday, OK?

The reason I even thought of doing this? To pay off credit card debt and supplement student loans. I was a single parent, working on my MA, living five states away from my family. The ONLY thing that prevented my from doing it was that the clinic wasn’t geographically close enough for me to rush over for temperature checks, harvesting, etc. when my hormone tests were positive. Further, the only thing that stopped me from going the route of surrogacy was that the child I already had wasn’t really old enough to understand, and I didn’t want her being confused about the process.

Make no mistake, I was fully aware of the class implications throughout all the paperwork, applications, questionnaires, etc. I knew I was virtually pimping myself out; I may not have been selling sex, but I was selling pieces of myself nonetheless. What’s even worse? As I sit here now, less than one year away from earning my PhD, I’d absolutely consider doing it again. With a academic husband who brings his own share of student loan debt to the table, this is the only kind of pimping that doesn’t come with the stigma of being a whore. But I know that’s what it is: a reproductive whore of sorts.

Kuczynski seems to fetishize the comingling of genes as a symbol of her and her husband’s love. I wonder too if she feared that her husband (who had 6 children from 2 other marriages) wouldn’t be as committed to this child if it wasn’t biologically related to him. I think DV, unless I’m mistaken, that you’ve written about how it may be men who are more driven to pass on their genes, whereas many fertility clinic mothers would be happy to adopt but for their partners’ determination…or am I imagining a conversation we never had?

Geoff makes very interesting points too, especially about the toll work takes on our bodies. Since I’ve got a cushy office job, I forget that there are others who don’t! Perhaps Rayven will weigh in again, but I’d say that your union guys have probably sustained greater damage than surrogate mothers do, simply because surrogacy isn’t something that people can do for decades. And, it seems like the women who volunteer for surrogacy are people who do pregnancy really well–there are people who are really good at it, and who even enjoy it. But even then, there’s a limit I think to the number of times one could serve as a surrogate.

And, Mary: wow. Actually $100 ain’t bad, but I guess what you’re suggesting is that the wine-pouring was an inappropriate solicitation between profs and grad students. That’s also a relationship which it’s better perhaps to keep un-commercial? (Unless the work in question is school- or professionally related, that is.)

And, if you’ll permit a tangent, I can’t help but see parallels in this to a post of yours from a few weeks ago, the one about virginity. The discussion there centered on the state of (and language of) virginity, but it prompted me to consider the historical significance of virginity – as in, why did it matter. This led me, likewise, to puzzle over the significance of biology; as in, families wanted to ensure their particular genes persisted (and took charge of their property).